Welcome to the fascinating world of illusions. Illusions are a very nice window into how the brain works, because illusions can reveal the hidden constraints of the visual system in a way that normal perception fails to do so. In addition, illusions are fun, because they combine both the element of joy as well as the element of surprise.

The illusionary effects, demonstrations, and artwork that are contained on this site are especially powerful, and such reveal important processes of your visual system. We hope that you will enjoy our selection, as we have tried to put together material that is not only entirely fresh and innovative, but extremely fun and cool too!

Interactive Demonstrations. This section contains many new and unique interactive illusion demonstrations. You will be able to vary critical parameters in each illusion thereby affecting the strength of the effect. Most of the interactive demonstrations requirejavato be enabled.

Illusions in Art. Artists have traditionally used illusions that we will accept in order to suggest a realistic three-dimensional scene. In this section, we present artistic images that incorporate illusions that we will not accept. Here, we feature the examples of some of the world's leading illusion artists, including M.C. Escher, Shigeo Fukuda, Scott Kim, Sandro Del Prete, Nicholas Wade, and Oscar Reutersvärd.

Illusion Puzzles.Enjoy two excellent interactive antique illusion puzzles, which have baffled generations of puzzle enthusiasts. The two puzzles require a shockwave plugin.

3-D Illusions. Explore the world of stereo with impossible anaglyphs, 3D tesseracts, and much more.

Your Mind's Eye. Learn about an exciting interactive software exhibit for science museums that features literally hundreds of illusion demonstrations, artwork, and up-to-date scientific explanations. Find out where it is being displayed.

Research Library. Here is a comprehensive list of books published on illusions (both in print and out-of print).

Shimojo Laboratory. Learn about the leading-edge cognitive science laboratory at the California Institute of Technology that is co-sponsoring this site. Meet the people responsible for the creation of this site, learn about their latest research and experiments, and find out why they feel this is the most exciting area in science today.

IllusionWorks, L.L.C. Learn the primary sponsor of this site, IllusionWorks, L.L.C., which is a company devoted to developing and marketing educational and fun illusion products.

Illusion Products. Although this web site does not sell illusion products, here is a link to a site that has excellent illusion products for sale.